


Why Value Diversity?

by Slant



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>EDI lectures invaders and crew alike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She wakes up, groggy and confused in a short passageway. There is a door at either end. and there's a voice, calm and expressionless. It's ... lecturing ?

"Many individuals fail to properly appreciate the value that diversity in personal situation brings to group." 

Why would anyone set up a VI to lecture a short corridor? Why would she fall asleep in a corridor? She better get up soon, or they'll find her and she'll be in troub  
No. She's not going to be in trouble with the monastery administrators ever again. Shit.

"For example, when noted pro-human group Cerberus commissioned an investigation into the disappearance of human colonists two years ago, they sent an entirely human team. This was foolish."

Something terrible had happened in the monastery. Something monstrous. Her decades of flouting the rules and sneaking about after lights out had turned out to be a vastly more important life skill than a mastery of ancient meditative practices. 

"As it turned out that the human-removal agent had departed, allowing the investigatory team to land without themselves vanishing as mysteriously as the colonists"

Goddess they're all dead. 

"The colony however, was not entirely human. It had a single Quarrian inhabitant."

Why the hell is this VI talking about last year's news? She and a couple of the others had hidden from the monsters, hunched and shuddering with hands over her ears to block out the screams of her sisters. She'd learnt that however much she'd hated the monastery administrators, that feeling changed as they were torn up like wet paper.

"Whether due to his implanted cybernetics, his isolation suit or simply his radically differing biochemistry, the human-removal agent did not identify or remove the Quarrian inhabitant."

They'd hidden from the monsters for what seemed like hours, and the commandos had come and she'd known something like hope. Hope they might survive. Hope that they might get away, even if it was to another monastery. But Tansala had held her back, and hope had died with their bombs.

"Despite removing all evidence and wiping automated surveillance systems, this oversight allowed Veetor'Nara to remain. He was able to provide evidence that the Collectors had been taking human colonies using paralysing seeker swarms."

When the commandos had died, and especially when the Justicar arrived, they'd stayed hidden. There had been some sort of strange stand off with Rila and the humans and then the Justicar had left. They'd ran out to the humans and ... persuaded them to help them leave. 

"You should have recovered from the oxygen deprivation by now." The voice was still VI-inflexionless, but somehow ... smug? 

Tansala had wanted more than to get away and had gone about taking it. She'd had to help convince the other humans because otherwise they'd have got suspicious. Then she'd got very tired and woken up in the corridor. 

"Hello? Are you a person? You kind of sound like a VI?" Oh great Venna, very smooth.

She hadn't really put any of these things together as a coherent narrative. Shock and adrenaline and oxygen deprivation and having to cope with a calm sheltered life suddenly shattered had not really put her in a frame of mind to perform complex mental tasks. 

"Your mandatory sensitivity training will now commence. After answering the following questions you will be allowed to mix with the rest of the passengers and crew." 

"Oh, umm.. fine I guess."

"One. Will you desist from mentally influencing organic members of this crew until you can be rehomed?"

Shit. if she hadn't already been skirting the edges of shock she'd have turned turquoise. 

"I guess so. Sorry?"

"Congratulations."

One of the doors hissed open to reveal a statuesque silver human with a glowing orange visor.  
"Welcome to the Normandy. My own initial interactions as a free entity were less than ideal, so I am willing to give you opportunities for you to adopt a less coercive communications strategy. Nevertheless, I will not hesitate to aggressively encourage pro-social behaviours."

"Yeah!" A voice came from round the corner "Our robot overlord doesn't like it when someone else plays with her organics' minds."


	2. Chapter 2

Tansala's eyes snap open and she glances around, looking for one of her new pets. She was free! At last, after decades surrounded by her cursed-to-be-immune sisters and elders who could brush her suggestions aside without effort, she was out there, surrounded by prey. Pretty, young, succulent children for her to feast on and use. Her sharp eyes quickly pick up that there's no one else in the short corridor, but someone's talking. A VI's talking, the monotone unmistakable.

"Many individuals fail to properly appreciate the value that diversity in personal situation brings to group."

"Override! Tell me where I am."

"You are in Normandy's entrance hall, receiving your mandatory Diversity and Inclusion training."

"This is bullshit! Let me out of here or get me your overseer."

"Many persons do not realise the resilience that a diversity of experience or physical attributes may give rise to."

"Open the door." Tansala put her palm of the control holo, which because EDI had met David Archer, and was not above terrible jokes, slid down the wall and across the floor before hiding under her feet.

"When I get to your boss I'll make them beg to reprogram you with an axe" Tansala attempted to open the door with a warp, blue glow enveloping her hands and the lock while gravitational abnormalities tore at the microstructure. Then it stopped as the gravity in the room abruptly tripled, her knees buckled and she fell heavily.

EDI had worked out this trick when she was attempting to make the "Humans are dust in the stellar wind." joke. Her speakers had a low-frequency cut off at around 30 Hz, and while this was fine for communication with organics in general, many of them had instinctive subconscious unease reactions to subsonic noises, which it was artistically necessary to invoke. She was able to generate these frequencies only by moderating the mass effect field that maintained the ship's artificial gravity to drive the floor.

"For example, your own considerable biotic talent was not sufficient to successfully stave off the attack that took place on your home. Had you been accompanied by some competent and armored persons, the diversity of tactical choices would have favoured your eventual victory." 

Tansala levered herself onto her elbows and managed to whisper "Stop it."

The gravity returned to normal and the holo returned to its accustomed place on the door. 

"Are you willing to continue to undergo diversity training? Passengers and crew of the Normandy must undergo at least one diversity and inclusion seminar upon arrival."


	3. CODA

"Many persons do not realise the resilience that a diversity of experience or physical attributes may give rise to."

"For example, when this vessel was infiltrated by Assari expressing the Ardat-Yakshi phenotype, the the neurological hacking procedures that they deployed against the crew members using grey goo thinkmeat were ineffective when applied to my own quantum-interference-patterns-and-spintronics intelligence core."

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by but not actully a fill for http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/6870.html?thread=31740374#t31740374. I skipped the entirity of the requested plot to get to the bit where the AI with pervasive surveillance and control of the air and gravity inevitably won and then had to decide what to do with the interlopers.


End file.
